


Details in the Fabric

by athena_crikey



Category: Endeavour (TV)
Genre: Drinking, Gen, Jakes has his own world view, Morse is a sullen bastard, Season 1
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-03-13
Updated: 2016-03-13
Packaged: 2018-05-26 12:42:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,315
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6239812
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/athena_crikey/pseuds/athena_crikey
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jakes likes drinking in company, but he only gets drunk alone.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Details in the Fabric

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this ages ago, but after S3 I couldn't quite bear to post it so close to ACADIA. Some good old S1 Jakes-Morse interaction.

It takes Detective Constable Toffee-Nosed Morse nearly four months to ruin the best copper’s pub near Cowley Station.

The first time Jakes goes out with the rest of the lads to find him sitting tucked away in a corner, uninvited and unwanted, the eyes of the group turn unerringly to Jakes for direction on how to proceed. Jakes ignores him, and the rest of the men take their queue from him – Morse isn’t a Victorian maiden, he can bloody well join the group if wants to.

Apparently, he doesn’t. Apparently he wants to sit alone in his corner and drink his beer in sullen silence. 

A week later, he’s there again. Once again, eyes turn to Jakes, and once again Jakes ignores the git. They don’t need him declaiming over their drinks, don’t need his thoughtless superiority or personal awkwardness. Morse is no danger to Jakes – he’s far too self-destructive for that, and among the enemies he’s already unconsciously made at the station DCS Bright is by far the most striking. But having proved not to be a danger to Jakes’ career ambitions isn’t a reason to have him around.

Two weeks later, he’s back again, drinking alone in his corner. 

The effrontery of it is, he neither watches nor ignores them. He just sits there alone in his peculiar thoughts, as though they were any of the other patrons whom Jakes recognizes vaguely from repeat visits, nothing more than strangers to him. 

After this, there is no longer a question of how to proceed; Morse is ignored by habit. He’s served from the other end of the bar, his table passed by in silence on trips to the toilet, and his eventual departure unnoted. 

But somehow, it’s not the same. Somehow Morse’s presence digs into Jakes, prickly and itching, like a burr that can’t be dislodged. Morse is there sometimes when he drinks with the rest of the sergeants, but equally when he drinks with the newspaper boys, or the flash lads from down by the night clubs who sail very close to the wind. Sometimes, even, when Jakes is drinking alone himself – neat scotch from the cheap end of the bar. Jakes likes drinking in company, but he only gets drunk alone. 

And he starts to think, very self-importantly he’s aware, that perhaps Morse isn’t there by chance. Perhaps he’s watching them. Watching _him_. 

Jakes hates being watched. Not by blokes, even young ones, even colleagues. 

So he cuts the watering hole from his routine. Switches pubs to the darker and more cramped one the other side of the Botley Road where the beer is more bitter and the atmosphere smokier. Oh, the lads complain about it, but it’s easy to bring them around – watered-down beer there, a good-looking bird here – it all comes off fine. And life continues on for Peter Jakes pretty much how he likes it. 

Until, one evening when he’s sitting alone sipping his third scotch, he suddenly notices Morse in the corner. Sitting on his own, as usual, with a beer in front of him and a stupid, thoughtful look on his face. 

\--------------------------------------------------------------------

For a long minute, Jakes considers holding true to his pattern. Ignore the bastard, and dump a deskful of unnecessary work on him the next day. It has a simple attractiveness, certainly, but he’s angry now. An anger full of teeth and knuckles, the kind that wants airing, preferably in a back alley. 

“The hell are you doing here?” he asks, suddenly across the room and looming over Morse. Morse looks up at him, blinking away his surprise. 

“What it looks like,” says Morse, waving at his beer. He’s sitting on one side of a corner bench-seat, dark wood with a very faded pillow backing. Jakes drops down heavily on the other side.

“Drinking alone like some goddamn wallflower?” he demands.

Morse’s face settles into a flatter expression, tinged with an edge of antagonism. “I’m particular about my companions.”

“Want me to leave? Tough.” Jakes slings his arm across table as if to claim it. Morse’s lip gives a little turn and he snorts softly, like a disgusted cat. 

“No; I meant your retinue.”

“What _retinue_?” he imitates Morse’s cut-glass tones. “I’m alone. Or have you been looking into The Great Beyond?” he asks sarcastically. 

Morse gives him a half-lidded expression of contempt. “I meant your friends.”

Jakes pulls back, straightening in a half-drunk flare of rage, sweetened by confirmation of his suspicions. “You have been following me, you little –”

“Of course I haven’t,” dismisses Morse, looking really contemptuous now. It makes Jakes want to wipe it off his face, teach the Oxford boy what blood in his teeth is like. “If you want to have your corrupt meetings in the copper’s pub, it’s your own damn fault who sees you.”

Jakes’ lips rise in a silent snarl, his fingers tightening around his glass. “Corrupt? You can take that back, you little toe-rag – if your tongue’s not too raw from licking the boss’s arse.”

Morse straightens, whitening as his face pinches up, his eyes very narrow. “Are you trying to pick a fight with me?” 

Jakes, itchy with the desire, gives him a smug look. “Well done _detective_.” He finishes his glass in a swallow and gets up. He has just enough self-restraint not to start a fight in here. There are too many patrons, some of them from the nick. He steps out, and sees Morse hasn’t followed him. “Well?” he growls, impatiently. 

Morse looks at him as though he were mad. “I’m not going to fight you,” he says, sounding exasperated. “Besides, you’re drunk.”

“This isn’t drunk,” dismisses Jakes, pounding the table as he leans in. “This is _you_ flitting about picking fights and then _running away_.”

Morse sighs. “I’m not picking a fight, Jakes.”

Jakes sits back down and slides right up into his face, staring him in the eye. “Then take it back,” he whispers, voice razor-edged. 

“I don’t lie,” replies Morse, just as quietly. “Everyone knows you’re on the take. If you want to cover it up, I’m not the person to start with.”

“On the take? Morse, receiving payment for information isn’t sodding _corruption_. How d’you think we get information? How d’you think half the nick makes ends meet?”

Morse draws back, outrage painting his face with a stiff, wide-eyed look. “What do you call it, then?” he asks, disgust dripping from his tone. Jakes wrinkles his nose. 

“Business,” he snaps. “You’ve got a lot to learn, if you think our lords and masters don’t all have their snouts in the trough. Big men do what they want when they want, Morse, and they don’t give a damn what gets broken or how the pieces get cleaned up. Expecting any different from us is nothing but naivety or hypocrisy.” 

“You’re wrong,” breathes Morse, staring. “That’s not –”

“The way it is? The way it should be?” taunts Jakes. “If you want to play Pollyanna and close your eyes, fine. But don’t treat the rest of us like sinners for walking about with our eyes open.”

“And your hands out.” Morse shakes his head once, slowly. He sees Jakes’ flushed anger spiking, and gets up slowly. “Alright, I’m going. And if you want to know why I was in here, it’s because Strange never bothers to check this side of the Botley road.”

Jakes thinks about this for a breath. Then, “Skipping out on your swotting? The guv’nor won’t be impressed.”

“Go ahead and tell him. Maybe he’ll give you a bob for it,” snaps Morse as he passes, colour high. A moment later, he’s gone.

Jakes orders another scotch, and remains slumped in the corner. 

The next morning, he has too much of a headache to remember his pledge to dump the usual slew of meaningless work on Morse.

But he does it all the same. Force of habit.

END


End file.
